Thursday, July 5, 2012

A lesson for the country - Ballymun kids lift school attendance by 14,000 days

The
Government is planning to extend the law that holds parents to account when
their child misses school unnecessarily. The new law would also cover the
parents of children under six years of age. Meanwhile, Ballymun has come up
with a completely new (and possibly complimentary) approach.

A
Local Development Company in Dublin has used computer software and a community
development approach to dramatically improve school attendances.

By Conor
Hogan

In 2008, the attendance
rate for primary schools in Ballymun was worse than that of other disadvantaged
areas and 3.5% below than the national average.

Local community and
educational organisations to take action and in the past two years the gap
compared to the national average has halved. Last year, 14,000 less school days
were missed in all.

Meanwhile, chronic
absenteeism for Traveller boys has fallen by over 24% while the attendance rate
for Traveller girls actually overtook the national average for schools in
disadvantaged areas.

So how did they go
about achieving this?

“A lot of work,” says
Colma Nic Lughadha, Education Programme Manager with Ballymun Whitehall Area
Partnership which led the initiative. “We knew that educational opportunities
was one of the main priorities because of a survey we carried out among 500
local people.”

“Education came second
on a list of seven priorities parents had for their children; only
apprenticeships were prioritised more. The survey demonstrated to us that behaviour
wasn’t matching opinion. But that opinion gave us a good position in which we
could hope to mobilise the community.”

A more systematic
approach than before was taken.Software was
provided to the schools to keep track. Attendance Care Teams were established
to raise the issue.

Meanwhile, home school
liaison officers were employed in the schools for two hours each day with the
specific task of getting into contact immediately with the absent children,
whether that be by text or phone call. These were fully paid local people.

“And it was very
important for our attitude to be non-judgmental,” Colma says. “It was about
rewarding the positive behaviour and encouraging the children to take personal
responsibility for their own attendance.”

Creative approaches
were taken such as rewarding classrooms for full or best attendances and
getting classes to compete for the top prize.This
made children more determined to come in and motivated parents to bring them in
and not let the side down.

A brochure was
distributed to the parents as regards child illnesses, written in association
with Dr. Tara Conlon, a local GP. The guide ‘When is a Child too Sick for
School?’ is available online: http://www.ballymun.org/dloads/BMUN_School_Att_09.pdf
(See pages 6-7).

Recommendations in it
included “No need to stay home” for cold symptoms, “No need to stay home unless
drooling” for hand foot and mouth disease, “They are a nuisance, not a reason
to stay home” for head lice and “Stay home until 24 hours after last bout for
diarrhoea.” This drastically reduced the number of children taking sick days.

Attempts were also made
to make the school experience as positive as possible for the child, by
welcoming each and every one of them in the morning, praising them for their
efforts, giving out prizes for attendance achievements and not giving homework
at the weekends.

“There are elements any
school or community can learn from what we’ve done,” Colma says.

Ballymun’s model it
could provide a prototype for the rest of the country.

The average absentee
rate in primary schools nationwide, measured in terms of the number of
schooldays lost in a school year, stands at 6.2%, according to the latest
figures published in May. A total of 9,485,562 days of school were missed by
all primary and secondary students across the State in 2009/10.

FIND OUT MORE

The Ballymun School Attendance Community Action Initiative was funded
by the dormant accounts board in association with Ballymun Whitehall Area
Partnership and the Local and Community Development Programme.

If school attendance is an issue in your area and you wish to learn how
Ballymun did it, check out the downloads section of this BWAP’s website: www.ballymun.org

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